#sorry this got really surrealist idk why

[thorne1435]

That goal is nigh near impossible but I'll cheer you on ma'am with fireworks and that #1 glove I always see in movies.

Anyways, more songs!

Home (Pt. 1 & 2) and Home (Pt. 3) - Current Joys

I Just Couldn't Save You Tonight - Ardhito Pramono (some local artist goodness)

#Grownupz - FEiN

HAVE A NICE DAY - WORLD ORDER

Do It All The Time - IDKHOW

Posession Island - Gorillaz

This one's kinda long I'm just gonna stick a read-more on all of it.

Home (Pt. 1 & 2): This sounds like the intersection between Cage The Elephant, Vundabar, and mom jeans., y'know? Like if you had all three of those bands on a Venn Diagram you'd have Current Joys in the center between them all.

Radiator Hospital comes to mind. One of their slower songs from their newest.

Home (Pt. 3): Y'know, one of these days, artists reversing their instruments isn't going to create a spacy, surrealist feeling that telegraphs something being wrong. But that day is not today and I am still a slut for it. I do think that this one is a bit less interesting than (Pt. 1 & 2), though. Even despite the reversed guitar, there's just not enough variation for this to hold up on its own, to me. But that might also be trying to convey something artsy. I'm not sure. It certainly seems artsy.

I have no idea what to recommend so, sorry, nothing obscure. I hope sad and artsy is enough.

I Just Couldn't Save You Tonight: Is it "Ardʰito" or "Arðito"? There's a language I don't recognize in the comments which is making it hard to tell (and also making me insecure because I'm usually really good with linguistics). Anyway, this is the intersection between Cavetown and Liana Flores. I think I'm going to send this to my best friend actually because this style is usually right up her alley.

I'm sorry to recommend something popular from the early 2000s but you do seem like the kinda person who would like A Perfect Circle. Yeah yeah, I know, hipster bitch listens to Tool, shut up...

#Grownupz: This is gay people music. I don't know why. I just know that its vibes are gay.

yo its just like purble yelle reb an blu by protuglal fe mamn. (Listen to Rich Friends instead though because it's better)

Have A Nice Day: Oo! It's Japanese! And...it sounds incredibly corporate. This is actually horrifically dystopian, and I don't think they're unaware of that. I usually don't like music videos but I think if you made me listen to this without the music video I'd miss the point of the song. A mob of men in dress clothes moving robotically and smiling in a disturbing and disingenuous way while normal people on the streets watch them in confusion and fear. Surely that's intentional. The lyrics are as meaninglessly chipper as their faces because the corporate style doesn't allow for anything sad. Everyone should be happy. Aren't you happy? Isn't life fun? This is very normal. Smile! Be happy. :)

I don't know anything as high-concept as that, so I think you win. I didn't know you could win a music share, but you did. So good job! You've forced me into using my secret weapon: Sayonara, Perfect World.

Do It All The Time: You have the gall to suggest I try the first IDKHBTFM song I EVER LISTENED TO? IN MY MUSIC SHARE?! (it is our music share, actually) Especially after all that shit I said about finding them really early, too. But anyway, yeah, I like this song.

Have you heard of this niche band called I Don't Know How But They Found Me (abbreviated IDKHBTFW or sometimes IDKHow or sometimes just IDK)? They're pretty good, I really like this one song of theirs called "No One Likes The Opening Band". You've probably never heard of it, though. You should check it out.

Possession Island: Oh for fuck's sake, FINE! I'LL LISTEN TO THE NEW GORILLAZ ALBUM! JESUS!! Why is it being advertised to me by everything, is it really that good? Is it Plastic Beach 2??? I guess we'll see. Hey, while we're on the subject, do you remember how 2D got possessed off-camera during The Now Now era and nothing became of that?? And he's possessed again now, for Cracker Island, if I'm not mistaken. Or was he never not possessed, and Cracker Island came before The Now Now, chronologically? It's been forever since I fucked with Gorillaz lore. Oh uh, cool song, btw.

This song reminds me of Hallelujah. Yeah, the one from Shrek. I'm not gonna recommend that because we've all heard it (some of us have even heard the good version). So, just take...fuckin'...idk, this one?

#music share #man wouldn't it be funny if you couldn't click the links for some reason? #that would be hilarious

[soul-dwelling]

I dunno how founded this is since I haven’t read the majority of the Fire Force manga. But it seems that, as a prequel to Soul Eater, Ohkubo is trying to explain form over function? As in, he’s poorly and unnecessarily justifying the absurd aesthetics and even his art style over actually writing a story?

If Ohkubo was trying to communicate “this style reflects a certain philosophy,” it’s not clear. He could’ve taken a thorough absurdist stance with this. Like Shinra saying “yes, despair is inevitable so it’s absurd to keep on living, but that’s all life is. Smiling in the face of death. I’ll make the physical world reflect this as a reminder, etc…” or something. It wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch at all but he went with “lessening the value of life” and recreating the world again and again if they “don’t like this one…”. That’s not absurd, that’s nihilistic. Idk how else to phrase this, but it’s like Ohkubo took away Sisyphus’ boulder and is giving us a lecture on why it looks like a baseball instead of telling us what the fuck is going on with Sisyphus.

“Form over function”: So what you’re saying is, it’s not the shape that matters, it’s the soul of the work that matters?

…That Ohkubo of all people didn’t take away that lesson is all the more disappointing.

I kid, I kid–I get it, the form of a work of art influences the message it presents, and vice versa. And yeah, I really don’t know what style this ending of Fire Force was going for, as it moves from horror imagery to surrealistic trans-human art (a la “biblically accurate angels”) and finally a goofier version of the Soul Eater aesthetic.

The dude sacrifices pages of the last issue of Fire Force to explain why Death the Kid physically looks the way he did and to just include cameos of other Soul Eater characters. Such limited page space could have been used to wrap up this story, maybe (as I keep saying) show people who weren’t cool with losing their fire abilities, more clearly link how the one philosophy of the pre-Soul Eater world somehow connects to the current Soul Eater world, or, better yet, give an actual sendoff to the rather large cast in Fire Force instead of just a few panels showing Maki and Lisa shopping, Benimaru’s dad hanging out with the twins, and Joker and Burns just standing there doing nothing.

I had not considered how the style could reflect a philosophy, or, going across Ohkubo’s works, a tone. B Ichi was rounded faces and big action for goofy fun. Soul Eater started similarly before characters’ faces got more toned, suggesting a more serious story. NOT went moe enough to communicate slice of life. By the time of Fire Force, things were lean to indicate the fast-pace action while moments of the kind of horror we had at the end of Soul Eater–before just devolving in the last arc to an art style that looked more similar to the gag strips included at the end of all of his volumes since B Ichi.

And yes to “absurd, so might as well smile.” Maybe the “smile” idea repeats ideas we already saw with Robin in One Piece or a lot of characters throughout My Hero Academia–but it could work here, too.

And re-creating the world is not just nihilistic, it remains deeply cynical, as Ohkubo just re-treads what he already did with Soul Eater by saying, “Hey, let’s see the main four characters as kids again (sorry, Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki).” Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and he keeps looking backwards as if he is taking a bow or reflecting on what he accomplished–but if you are just repeating what you already did, and you aren’t showing a difference, than how have you progressed? How did Chapter 113 do anything differently from the dumb pervy gags in the Soul Eater prologue? How does seeing Maka et al as kids at the end of Fire Force reflect on how far he has come since Soul Eater? (And poor B Ichi still ignored like the black sheep.)

Imagine Ohkubo picking up that boulder, saying it’s a baseball, making it a baseball–then telling Sisyphus to get back to pushing it. Bonus points if it is somehow harder to move up a baseball along a trail, given how much smaller it is to get a handle on it.

#long post #spoiler #spoilers

[night-is-a-feeling]

Hii maia! top 5 fashion history facts (idk if that’s a good question but I guess u mentioned liking fashion history once so... skdjsjds) hope you’re doing great! 💕

omgosh sage! i’m so sorry this took me so long, this is an incredible hard question, and i’m so glad you asked it 🥺 this is going to be long and ranty i’m sure.

1. i wanna talk about trompe l’oeil, elsa schiaparelli, rationing during wwll, and inventive women at the time.

okay so this is like both a history story and a fact, i guess? so basically my love, my fav Elsa Schiaparelli was a brilliant fashion designer in the 1930s who was fascinated and heavily involved in the surrealist art movement. she was famous for designing on the intersection of fashion and art through surrealism. she was one of the first to play with the trompe l’oeil (trick the eye) technique within fashion, before this it was mainly used as an art technique. you know those shirts that have a peter pan collar? or a bow on the neckline? but they’re not real, it’s just stitching that creates an image of a bow? that’s what she was creating in the 30s. now the reason i told her story, is because her experimentation with trompe l’oeil and surrealism, left for an interesting fact from the 40s! during WWll most fabric was rationed, as most of it was needed for the war efforts, this radically changed the fashion industry. during this time it was still considered immodest for a women to be seen with bare legs. BUT the nylon that was used to create their pantyhose and stockings, was being heavily rationed. so they had to get creative. and these genius women realized that no one would notice if they just started painting the appearance of the seams in pantyhose up the backs of their legs. so that’s how they got through the war time, maintaining their modesty using the art of trompe l’oeil, while also baring their legs for all to see.

2. the originations of the “witchy” aesthetic and costume.

this is something i just read about and it blew my mind!! it’s one of the many fashion history things though that are both fascinating and deeply upsetting. so the basics are that for thousands of years, women were the brewers of the times. they were responsible for brewing all of the ale and beer consumed. this was a job they took on that afforded them freedom and a sense of independence, as they did not need men to accomplish this job. many widowers became brewmasters as a way to support themselves financially. now many of these women sold their brews at markets, and to be quickly identified they would wear large pointed hats, this help them be spotted and identified as having beer from far away. this isn’t the only identifiable iconography that we now associate with witches. they also hung brooms on their doors to signify that they had ale for sale, they kept cats to keep mice out of their product, they transported their brews in cauldrons, and relative to the times, they of course wore long dresses, often accompanied with draped cloaks. the change came in the 1500s when men realized they could profit off the production of beer, and began a long tradition of pointing to these women and yelling “witch” the occupation quickly became a death sentence for women to engage in. so that’s why our image of witches is actually just of old badass women brewmasters!

3. the gendering of pink and blue

it’s possible you’ve heard before that for many years the gendered ideas of these colours were swapped and also held very little prominence on our psyche. the thought was that pink was derived from red therefore it was a more passionate colour and blue was a more delicate, natural colour. it is also well documented that this kind of colour gendering was insignificant. that is until after WWll when the advertisement and sales generation took off. EVERYTHING was deeply ingrained with capitalism (still is),and everyone was buying into it. this girls wear pink, boys wear blue idea. was started by a department store that wanted to sell more product. and by gendering their products they were able to massively convince the western world that you had to subscribe to these ideals. it’s the norm after all. this forced the hand of many parents to buy more product just to support the idea of gender. baby boomers were the first generation to grow up in gender specific clothing before the age of 6.

4. monograms and louis vuitton

this is way more an origin story than a fun fact... sooo we all know the famous louis vuitton monogram, i’m sure most of us could point one out on the street. BUT maybe less commonly known is that LV is the creator of the modern monogram, and was somewhat the fashion originator of branding of this type. LV was originally just a trunk maker, he built and revolutionized the luggage industry. he invented a new waterproof canvas fabric to use for his trunks, essentially declaring leather as a terrible choice, because it made your clothes smell weird. (most of LV bags to this day are still made from this canvas and not leather) and because of the waterproof nature of his trunks, he was able to build them as perfect boxes that were stackable (easier for travel), whereas a domed top was always the way before. with this fame, came MANY counterfeits. so he worked to create a print that would separate his work from those of the counterfeits. eventually the counterfeit designers caught on, and made theirs with the same print. this went on for three rounds before louis passed away in 1892 and his brand was left to his son george, who ran into the same counterfeit issues. so george created an intricate multi faceted monogram print, that would become so synonymous with louis vuitton, that it is still the most recognizable monogram in the fashion world. what is so fascinating to me about this origin story, is that people today will look at a LV bag and immediately think “fake” so it’s really funny to me that this house that spent its first 40 years working SO HARD to be unique and decidedly not fake, and yet still to this day people think FAKE! immediately upon seeing that monogram.

5. bathing machines, and bathing costumes

ummm help! this is one of the funniest things, but also somewhat upsetting. okay so the history of bathing suits is intensely intricate and seeped in misogyny. and this fact is not any different. now there are many instances of these being used in the early to mid 1700s within europe, which makes more sense because at the time bathing in the nude was a commonality. and these offered modesty. however!!! they remained prevalent within europe and mainly england well into the 1800s even after bathing costumes became the norm. basically these modesty protectors, were small huts that were built on carriages. women would come to the beach, walk up the steps into one of the available bathing machines, change into her swimming costume. and you’ll never guess what happens next!! the fucking carriage is pulled into the water by horses! this was so that the women could slip straight out of the changing room directly into the water, and not a soul had to see the immodesty and immorality that was a women in a swimming costume. ya know, even though the swimming costume was a head to toe thick wool covering. even that was ✨immodest✨ anyways please google these, because genuinely i cannot believe they are real.

ask me my top 5 or top 10 anything

#this was so hard to narrow down 😭 but i kept it to five only because it would have been far too long if i kept going #i really wanted to discuss coco chanel and hugo boss in relation to nazi germany #because both were HEAVILY involved in the success of the nazi’s #but i also wanted to keep this a little more fun fact orientated a little lighter #but if you wanna know about that shoot me a message!!! #thanks again for the question it was so much fun!!! #i’m doing good! i hope you’re as well? #my loves #sgyep #fashion

[hollyplays]

The Roundup: October 2018

This year is going by too slowly. I wish this was the November Roundup. Then it’d be closer to Smash and also Christmas. Then it can slow down, though, cuz I like winter.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Starting big this month. Assassin’s Creed has done a lot of course correcting the last few years, but Odyssey may have corrected too far for me. The story here is enjoyable, and so is the stealth combat, but every single thing they put in between me and either one of those things is miserably frustrating. The game is constantly adding quests to my log without prompt or explanation, so I have no motivation or desire to complete them. Combat is floaty and repetitive and even assassinations have been reworked. I don’t mind that stabbing a dude in the throat isn’t a one-hit kill, but it’s such a huge departure from every other Assassin’s Creed game. The end result is really frustrating and makes what should be the best part of the game mediocre. There’s no shields to force you to dodge and counter (no in-game explanation for this, btw. every enemy will have a shield, but you don’t because fuck you.) but the prompts telling you when to dodge or parry are so tiny you’re lucky to even notice them, let alone hit whatever buggy ass timing window the game expects of you. Anyway. All that would be forgivable if the story was good enough, but there’s so much filler in between story beats. It starts to feel like a chore.

Spider-Man(PS4): Now this is a game. Insomniac knew exactly what I wanted out of a Spider-Man game and hand-delivered it to me. Dynamic but forgiving combat, an emotional story, Arkham-style stealth missions, The Sinister Six, all kinds of unlockable suits. I played the shit out of this. Hell, I got the Platinum trophy. My one complaint is that getting the platinum can be a bit grindy, as you have to go to every district and stop like 20 crimes in each one, but I put on a Spotify playlist in the background and had a ball doing that too. I hope they’re saving Venom for the sequel.

As Above, So Below: I’ve seen this three times now, and somehow every time I see it I expect it to be mediocre, but it never is. It’s not the best horror movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s conceptually intriguing and scary as hell every time I watch it.

Sorry To Bother You: This should win Best Picture but it won’t because there’s no justice in the world. You can safely watch the trailer for this movie, but do yourself a favor and learn NOTHING ELSE about it. Just watch it. Be aware that it is an anti-capitalist surrealist comedy and then just sit down and inject it into you. I need to watch it a few more times to really wrap myself around it but holy shit is it good. On a technical level alone, it’s a fucking masterpiece.

Medium Cool: I got the criterion of this in a bundle with some others for super cheap and I almost feel bad about it, cuz this movie earns its price tag. Medium Cool blends documentary and fiction so well it’s hard to see the difference, if there even is one. The “story” is interesting enough, but Medium Cool’s real strength is as a snapshot of Chicago, 1969. This is a must-watch IMO, but definitely watch the special features or do a lil research before hand or the first act might lose you.

Design For Living: This movie’s cute as hell. It isn’t To Be Or Not To Be, but that’s not a reasonable bar for any movie, even a Lubitsch. I enjoy the 1933 polyamory rep, and I was surprised at how much genuine agency the female lead has. Also, is it just me, or is the main girl going off and getting married a HUGE trope in screwball comedies?

Tampopo: Tampopo is a little weird, but more than that, it’s perfect in every way.

Eighth Grade: I remember when ‘what’ came out, Bo Burnham said he wanted to do more creative things and less comedy. If Eighth Grade is the caliber of thing he meant, I hope he never does comedy again. Devoid of any over-arcing plot, Eighth Grade serves as a picture-perfect snapshot (or snapchat, eh millenials?) of the titular time period, and that means it is exactly as cringe-worthy and hard to watch as it sounds. It took me two days to watch this movie, because the embarassment was just too much. But don’t do that. Sit down and watch it all the way through. Also, I can’t believe Grover from Kicking & Screaming gave me dad feels. What the fuck.

Apostle: I don’t know what to call this genre. Is this a horror film, or a thriller? Idk. Anyway. Apostle is kinda like The Crucible, only in The Crucible the real monster is The Evil That Men Do, and in Apostle the real monster is The Evil That Men Do and Also That Gimp Lookin Thing and also The Earth. I enjoyed this movie, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the torture had been a little more tasteful.

Inside Llewyn Davis: I’ve been saying it “lou-ellen” all this time but there’s no L there, so egg on my fuckin face. This movie is one of my favorite Coen brothers I think. And not just because there’s multiple fluffy cats.

Ant Man & The Wasp: Turns out having one script and not a Frankenscript of three will do a lot of good. This movie was really good, except that the romance between Scott and Hope still feels really forced. Also it has the biggest bullshit science factor of any movie ever made, and it’s little jokes about it don’t make it easier to suspend my disbelief. 

Tucker and Dale vs Evil: I remembered really loving this when it first came out, but it really falls apart in the last act. I know the whole ‘half hilbilly’ thing is a genre trope and that’s why they did it, but it just feels unnecessary in a movie packed full of genre tropes. A real less is more situation.

Wandersong: This game is cute as hell. I didn’t beat it for whatever reason, but I really loved it. The art design is wonderful, the soundtrack is sweet and catchy, and you get to sing. This is a really good palate cleanser and happy game.

Dead By Daylight: I got this for free with PS+ a few months back but I didn’t get around to playing it until recently and I wish I had. I’m not sure if I want to call it ‘good’, because it’s such a unique experience that I find it difficult to compare it with other games. The closest thing to it is Evolve, which I never played. Pick this up while it’s on sale and try it out. It’s really, really fun.

#holly talks #the roundup